The present invention relates to an apparatus for loosening an end of a strand of textile material has been wound on a tube in the form of a package so that the strand end can be readily engaged in a subsequent operation.
One common practice for facilitating the engagement of an end of a strand of yarn at a subsequent yarn handling location is to form a so-called reserve winding on a package at the completion of the building of the package. For example, it is known to provide yarn packages built at the spinning stations of a ring spinning machine with a reserve winding by relatively rapid downward movement of the ring rail of the ring spinning machine toward the end of the yarn package building operation. To facilitate subsequent engagement of the so-called reserve winding, one common practice has been to wind the end portion of the reserve winding on the exposed bottom portion of the tube on which the yarn package is built, thereby forming a so-called reserve winding end piece.
However, in certain types of yarn package building operations such as, for example, those in which the doffing of completed yarn packages is a substantially fully automatic process, the building of a reserve winding end piece on an exposed portion of the tube is often omitted. It is therefore critical that the reserve winding which is formed--that is, the end of the strand of textile material which is exposed on the outer surface of the yarn package--can be readily engaged without damaging the other windings of the yarn package. In U. S. Pat. No. 4,681,271, a device is disclosed for applying suction to a yarn package to thereby loosen and engage the strand of textile material. However, such suction-type yarn end engaging devices have relatively significant energy requirements as well as relatively significant capital costs. In U. S. Pat. No. 2,675,971, a yarn end preparation device is disclosed which has a hook-shaped wire positionable relative to the outer surface of a yarn package to engage the end of a strand of textile material thereon, which tends to pull the yarn end and thereby tighten the windings of the yarn ends on the package.
Therefore, there is a need for improvements in devices for engaging a reserve winding disposed on the outer surface of a yarn package.